Boud for Thought

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this year's Ottawa Jazz Festival. It was a very special honour for me to be part of the house trio hosting the jam sessions every night for ten straight days - the first year I went to the jazz festival (1996...) I probably went to eight of their late night jams. It was my first exposure to the music in a club setting - real professionals playing mere feet away, the sound came from the instruments as much as any sound system. I'm really happy to have had this chance…

Hey, just a quick note to say I've updated my calendar to reflect some Jazz Festival events, most notably the 24 hour jazz ramble which takes place from 10AM Friday to 10AM Saturday next weekend. I'll be on at noon with Mark Ferguson playing some Bill Evans music in the style of his overdubbed pianos records. I'll also be part of Ed Lister's quintet at 9PM. The whole event takes place at the Record Centre on Wellington.

I also had a blast playing all types of Indian music at City Hall last week for the…

I've started rehearsals with Vinay Bhide for a show May 10th at noon at City Hall. Vinay has asked Mike Essoudry and me to join him to play what we feel fits in the performance of two pieces. One is based on the Raga Rageshri, on which I have previously written an original piece, "Pas De Deux". In the key of C, the notes for improvising are Bb-C-E-F-A-Bb-C and the downward notes are C-Bb-A-F-E-D-C. After a few minutes of getting it in your ears, an accidental G sounds glaringly wrong.

Not a lot of shows coming up with all of my accompanist work looming, but I thought I'd share some things I've been checking out.

I've been listening to Keith Jarrett's Radiance, and album I couldn't get into when it first came out. Now that I've been doing more solo playing and my ears have improved, I thought it would be good to give it a few more passes. The concept is that he takes an idea from the previous improvised piece and forms a new piece out of it, and de-emphasizes melody, contrary to a lot…

My hopes of a regularly maintained thoughtful content-filled blog haven't materialized in the face of my regular practice and teaching schedule. However, I thought this might be a great and easy way to keep track of fun news and things I'm doing as they happen, instead of constantly bombarding my e-mail list.

Most recently, I've been practicing video game theme songs for this Friday, when I'll be playing with the relatively new F8-BIT at Live on Elgin.

Virtually immediately after you start playing jazz music you start getting pressure to know "all the standards". I remember a giant daunting list at the back of a popular jazz theory book (that I don't recommend) that said "Learn all of these before you move to New York!". Scary stuff. In reality, being a human jukebox is only one of many vocations out there in the music world. I know great musicians that have very little common repertoire with me. This is getting more common just because there is so…Read more

Here is the another video of a solo piano arrangement of a pop/punk tune. The first one you can find by clicking here.

I went to see the documentary about the band All and the Descendents "Filmage" when it came out and immediately became one of my favourite music movies. Musicians that I looked up to lived a very tough life on the road, playing music for food and gas. 20 years after first hearing their music, it all makes sense to me now, and I still have a soft spot for all of their records.

First of all, the very word "Bootlegging" has to do with clandestine action, and what started me thinking about this issue was the extremely overt and non-secretive manner in which people currently are reproducing live music.

We have all had that thought when someone holds their phone up to record a shaky, badly lit chunk of video from a live music performance. What are they thinking? Do they lack the presence to enjoy the experience without proof they were there? Do they love their phone more than the…

My love for North Indian Classical music began when I took a course taught by Vinay Bhide at Carleton University in 2002. His introduction to Indian music was aimed at all Western musicians, but to me seemed geared even more towards jazz musicians since so much of the excitement in Hindustani music comes from improvisation, usually over a pre-determined or standard form. Their idea of form differs, but not as much as you might think.

Although the amount of great reading materials is rapidly growing, I most…